AAP, Trinamool to Join Congress Boycott in Parliament

New Delhi: After days of appearing to be the loudest protesters in Parliament, the Congress today looked far from isolated as most opposition parties, including the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Trinamool and Samajwadi Party, decided to boycott the Lok Sabha for five days in a show of solidarity after 25 Congress lawmakers were suspended from the Lok Sabha.

"It is a dark day for democracy," Congress president Sonia Gandhi said after Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan's action, which her party has called unprecedented.

The Trinamool Congress of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said today: "We are supporting the Congress. This should not have been done."

Last week, many opposition parties had appeared reluctant to go along with the Congress' "no discussion without resignation" plan to continue disrupting parliament unless senior BJP leaders caught in controversies were removed. These parties had skipped a coordination meeting led by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

AAP, which has been among the sharpest critics of the Congress, did attend the meeting, along with the Nationalist Congress Party. "The opposition needs to be united, for that we are with the Congress," AAP's Bhagwant Mann, who attended the meeting, had said.

Sonia Gandhi this morning made it clear that her party would continue its protests to press for the removal of senior BJP leaders caught in the Lalit Modi and Vyapam controversies.

"Our stand is very clear... there is a mountain of incontrovertible evidence in the public domain for the Prime Minister to require the resignations of the External Affairs Minister and the two chief ministers," Mrs Gandhi said at a meeting of her party lawmakers.

The Congress has led the demand that foreign minister Sushma Swaraj and the two BJP chief ministers Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh must resign before work can be done in Parliament. The Left has backed the demand but parties like the Samajwadi Party have been more muted, saying that they don't want Sushma Swaraj to resign.

The BJP has ruled out any resignations.